Chapter 6
Chapter Six
LEON
In college, Leon had taken a biology class to fulfill his science requirement, and they’d studied how the brain stores short-term memory.
He was pretty sure his brain had stopped processing short-term memory when James took his phone out of his hands.
He didn’t remember leaving his apartment or the drive over.
The first real memory he formed was Hailey’s distraught voice calling his name.
It was possible he vaulted over the back of her car. He also might have run into a paramedic on the way.
“Hailey!”
“Leon!” she sobbed, reaching for him from where she was sitting on the back step of the ambulance.
He skidded to a stop right in front of her, taking the hand that wasn’t pressing a compress to the side of her face. A paramedic was inspecting a gash running across her forehead. Her hair was matted with blood, and dried bits of it were stuck to her face and the shoulder of her coat.
Leon’s entire arm was tingling, and he forced himself to take a deep breath. He refused to distract the paramedics from caring for Hailey by doing something fucking stupid like passing out.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he said, and Hailey hiccupped in response.
“Are you okay? Where’s Trina? Why are you here?
Shouldn’t you be in a hospital?” He turned to look desperately at the paramedic.
“Why the fuck are you on the side of the road? Do you see her? She needs to be in a fucking hospital right–”
“Leon,” a soft voice interrupted, and he glanced over to see Trina clutching their jacket tightly around themself. “She doesn’t want to go to the hospital.”
Leon whipped back around, just as a steady hand pressed into his back.
“And why the fuck not?” Leon asked. He only had to turn his head an inch to catch James’ eye as he stepped up to his side.
“She doesn’t want to go to the fucking hospital, and I’m going to need you to talk sense into her because I’m seeing red, and it’s not from this fucking holiday or these fucking lights. ”
“Sir, if you could please just–” the paramedic tried to say.
“Mom can't see me like this, Leon! She's going to freak the fuck out!”
Hailey’s delivery of Leon’s favorite curse word was mangled by the fact that she was still crying.
“Hailey, I do not give a flying fuck–”
“You don’t want to worry her, right, boo?” Trina said, even though their face looked far from convinced. If anything, they sort of looked like they were more likely to pass out than Leon.
“Can you check on Trina?” Leon murmured to James.
James hesitated for just a beat before crossing the small space between them to offer Trina a one-armed hug. Trina collapsed against his chest and burst into tears.
“That! That’s what’s going to happen if I come into the ER on a gurney! Mom is never going to recover. It’s going to scar her for life, and she already sees so much awful shit!”
Leon could feel his pulse behind his eyeballs. “Does she need to go to the hospital right now?” he asked the paramedic.
The young man grimaced. “I would say that she needs to go as soon as possible.”
“Okay, but I’m not, like, bleeding out, right?” Hailey asked.
“Or in?” Leon snapped.
At the blank look, the paramedic shot him. Leon let loose a growl he had been holding in since the second he’d first answered the phone. “Internal bleeding. Is she bleeding into her fucking brain and should have already been halfway to the ER?”
The guy looked at Hailey. “Is this very distraught man your dad?”
“No, he’s my brother,” Hailey said, without missing a beat.
She’d sometimes given that as a reason Leon could drop her off and pick her up from events.
Babysitter never sounded right, and neighbor didn’t always hold the weight it needed to.
He was a little touched that she still thought of him that way.
Something James had said a few weeks back had been playing on loop in Leon’s head for the past hour.
Have you told Hailey how much you care about her?
He had very nearly missed his chance.
“I am her very frantic older brother…who can sometimes be a jackass, but loves her and just wants her to be okay,” Leon said, his shoulders sagging as he felt the world tip a little to the side.
There was some shuffling, and then James was there, holding Leon up with an arm around his waist as he supported Trina on the other side.
“I’m assuming since you don’t look frantic, she’s doing okay?” James pressed, and the paramedic turned to him with a somewhat hopeful expression.
“And you are?” the man asked.
“He’s my husband, and Hailey’s brother-in-law,” Leon said, because there was no fucking way anyone was going to discount James or his need to be here just because of a relationship title.
James stiffened, and then just as quickly returned to squeezing Leon’s side and rubbing Trina’s back.
“I’m glad her whole support network is here,” the paramedic said.
“Miss Hailey most likely has a concussion from the airbags being deployed, but we can't be sure without doing further imaging.
They can do that at the hospital. We can't force her to ride with us, but again, I would advise her to go as soon as possible.”
“Can you take us?” Hailey asked, turning to set the biggest, widest puppy dog eyes of all time on Leon. “If you’re there, you can find mom and explain what’s happening, so she doesn’t have to see me bleeding all over the floor.”
“We’ve mostly stopped the bleeding,” the paramedic said, securing the bandage in place on her head. “Your vitals are also stable, but I still highly encourage you to go to the hospital. I also need you to sign this refusal form.”
Hailey sighed, quite dramatically, but she accepted the form and signed it with a flourish.
“Alright, Trina already signed her forms. I’m ready to go,” and Leon had to take a deep, deep breath.
“Fine. Get in the fucking car,” Leon said, stepping forward to help Hailey down.
She hopped down, much to Leon and the paramedic’s shock and horror.
“Be more fucking careful, or I’m going to refuse to take you, and then you’ll get to ride in the ambulance with that poor medic I’ve been harassing,” Leon said as he secured his arm around her back.
He shot the paramedic his best approximation of an apologetic smile.
“Thank you, and I’m sorry, and thank you. ”
He was pretty sure he heard the paramedic sigh indulgently, but he was already guiding Hailey slowly back to James’ car. “Can you drive, darlin’? I’ll sit in the back with both of them.”
“Yeah, of course,” James said as he led Trina to the car as well.
Getting both teens into the car and to the hospital was a slow, tense process. James abided by every single traffic law on the way, not wanting to risk an accident with the two teens in the car.
James pulled up in front of the ER and said he’d find parking while Leon got them both inside and checked in. The ER was surprisingly empty given the horrid weather, but maybe other people involved in accidents came in through the paramedic entrance like they were supposed to.
“Can you go into the back and find Mom?” Hailey asked.
Trina sighed as she tried to keep the ice pack pressed to Hailey’s face, even as she insisted on talking, looking around, and fidgeting.
“I don’t think I can just march in there,” Leon said with a sigh even louder than Trina’s. “When they call you back, I’ll ask around, okay? That’s the best I’ve got.”
James walked into the room, and the woman doing intake called out to him. He walked over and smiled warmly at her, bending down to speak quietly across the partition. There was a lot of nodding and even a short laugh, and then James gestured for the three of them to come over.
“Oh my god,” Hailey said as they both helped her to her feet. “Is James a doctor whisperer?”
Two nurses emerged from the double doors to the left of the check-in desk, each pushing a wheelchair.
“I’m fine,” Hailey tried to say, but Trina made a noise Leon was fairly certain he’d heard James make before. A very mensch-like noise of being ready to throttle their partner.
“Okay, fine,” Hailey grumbled. “But only if you get in the other one.”
“Gladly,” Trina said, all but collapsing into the chair. When they’d checked in, Hailey had insisted Trina be checked over as well, and Leon was grateful they’d been so agreeable. At this point, though, Leon was about ready to collapse as well.
As they passed James, he fell into step beside them, immediately wrapping his arm around Leon’s back.
“I’ve been here enough to know several of the intake and charge nurses.
They pinged Hailey’s mom and told her Hailey was here to talk to her.
You should probably head her mom off, though, because Hailey does look a bit… ”
“Gnarly,” Leon said, nodding in agreement.
After wheeling both teenagers into the triage bay, a nurse with bright purple hair offered to bring Dr. Sharp, aka Hailey’s mom, to them.
It took less than a minute for her to appear, worry written all over her face.
Leon did his best to explain the situation in a calm, collected manner, but he still couldn’t feel his fingers, and he was starting to fray around the edges.
Thankfully, James was able to pick up the slack.
Together, they walked with Hailey’s mom towards where Hailey was already getting set up in a bed.
Her mom’s blonde ponytail, identical to the one Hailey usually wore, bobbed frantically up and down as she hurried across the room and enveloped her daughter in a hug.